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November 3, New York, NY – Africa Israel, the flagship company of Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, announced this week that it is no longer involved in Israeli settlement projects and that it has no plans for future settlement activities. Africa Israel subsequently denied that this was a political decision. However, in the last few years numerous organizations, firms, governments and celebrities have exerted pressure and severed their relationships with Leviev and his companies over their involvement in settlement construction and other human rights abuses, in response to a boycott campaign initiated by Adalah-NY.

Israel’s Coalition of Women for Peace disclosed on Monday that in an official letter to the Coalition, Africa Israel stated, “Neither the company nor any of its subsidiaries and/or other companies controlled by the company are presently involved in or has any plans for future involvement in development, construction or building of real estate in settlements in the West Bank.” In follow-up articles in the Israeli media on Monday, Africa Israel said that the statement was “a description of the business today” and that “Africa Israel builds for all the public in Israel, and does not deal in politics or any other policy.”

Ethan Heitner from Adalah-NY explained, “Following years of settlement construction, and pro-settlement statements and activities by Lev Leviev, the public announcement by Africa Israel that it has no plans to build Israeli settlements is clearly a result of pressure from the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. This provides concrete evidence of the way in which the BDS movement can change companies’ behavior. But Africa Israel can’t speak out of both sides of its mouth and expect a clean bill of health. Africa Israel must unambiguously renounce settlement activity, and all other involvement in violations of Palestinian rights. And Lev Leviev needs to end his involvement in settlement construction through other companies like Leader Management and Development, as well as his support for human rights abuses in the diamond industry in countries like Angola and Namibia.”

From 2000-2008, Danya Cebus, the construction subsidiary of Africa Israel, built homes in the settlements of Har Homa, Maale Adumim (two different projects), Adam, and Mattityahu East on the land of the West Bank village of Bil’in. In late December, 2009, Africa Israel sold Anglo-Saxon Real Estate, a company that sold settlement homes. Another Leviev-owned company, Leader Management and Development, still owns and operates the expanding settlement of Zufim, built on the land of the West Bank village of Jayyous. In what is now Tel Aviv, Danya Cebus has supported Israeli efforts to erase Palestinian claims and heritage, by building projects on top of the remains of Palestinian villages like Sheikh Muwanis and Sumail that were ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. Leviev has also been a donor to two Israeli groups – the Land Redemption Fund and the Bukhara Community Trust, both of which have been involved in expanding Israeli settlements. Leviev has also been rumored to donate to Elad which is taking over the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

As recently as 2008 Leviev expressed strong support for Israel’s continued takeover of Palestinian land. In a March 2008 interview in Ha’aretz Daily, reporter Anshel Pfeffer asked Leviev, “Do you have a problem with building in the territories?” Leviev responded, “Not if the State of Israel grants permits legally.” According to an English translation of the same Ha’aretz interview published in the Jewish Chronicle, Leviev explained, “For me, Israel, Jerusalem and Haifa are all the same.” “So are the Golan Heights. As far as I’m concerned, all of Eretz Israel is holy. To decide the future of Jerusalem? It belongs to the Jewish people. What is there to decide? Jerusalem is not a topic for discussion.”

Modeled on the worldwide campaign against apartheid-era South Africa, the movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, which was called for in response to Israel’s many violations of Palestinian rights, has grown and achieved significant successes, particularly following Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip in 2009, which killed over 1400 Palestinians.

According to whoprofits.org, “Ahava manufactures cosmetics products using minerals from the Dead Sea. The company has a factory and a visitors’ center in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the occupied West Bank. 34% of the company shares are held by the settlement of Mitzpe Shalem… 6% by Kibbutz Kaliya (settlement).” All Israeli settlements violate international law.

As the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) explains in its description of L’Oreal, which also uses Dead Sea products, “It should be noted that one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While the entire shore and its resources are systematically closed to Palestinians by Israeli military occupation and apartheid practices, Israel exploits the Dead Sea for international tourism, mining and improving its image.”

Ahava products are not labeled as produced in the West Bank as required in the UK.

Ahava US is headquartered in New York at 411 5th Avenue, at 37th St.. Ahava’s products are sold in many New York stores.

SABRA HUMMUS

Sabra produces traditional Arab salads like hummus, baba ghanoush, and fried eggplant. Sabra is 50% owned by the Israeli company the Strauss Group, and 50% owned by Pepsico (the Strauss Group also owns 100% of Max Brenner -see below). The Strauss Group is the second largest Israeli food and beverage company and is widely touted as one of the great successes of Israeli industry. According to a Strauss Group report, “Humus is one of our national foods, and can be found in just about every Israeli home.”

On its website in the section on “Corporate Responsibility,” the Strauss Group emphasizes its support for the Israeli army, noting in a section entitled “In the Field with Soldiers”, “Our connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path. We have also adopted the Southern Shualei Shimshon troops from the Givati platoon with the goal of improving their service conditions and being there at the front to spoil them with our best products.”

Historically, the Israeli army has been a flagrant violator of human rights and international law. Even by the abysmal standards of the Israeli army, Israel’s “elite” Golani Brigade has a history of severe human rights abuses. According to a January 2009 article in Ha’aretz Daily, the Golani Brigade, “is known as a brigade that struggles with no small number of disciplinary problems and scandals, caused by bad behavior ranging from revolts against commanders to abuse of Palestinians.” During Israel’s January, 2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, The same Ha’aretz article reported that, “Golani is currently operating in the sector in which the IDF has seen the toughest battles with Hamas, the eastern part of Gaza City,” and “since 2003, Golani has also been involved in combating Palestinian terror groups in Gaza” (more from Ha’aretz on 2004 Golani Brigade destruction in Rafah). “In virtually every conflagration, Golani is rushed to the conflict point. In April 2002, during the intifada, the brigade played a central role in Operation Defensive Shield and the missions preceding it, and Golani’s actions in the Jenin and Tul Karm refugee camps led to the elimination of a number of wanted militants… Golani participated in the siege on Yasser Arafat’s Muqata compound in Ramallah, the capture of the casbah in Nablus (along with the Paratroops), and in the difficult fighting in Jenin refugee camp… In the… Second Lebanon War, it saw fierce battle with Hezbollah in the villages of Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbail and suffered 14 casualties between two battalions.”

“Breaking the Silence”, a group composed of ex-Israeli soldiers, has documented numerous cases of Golani Brigade involvement in human rights abuses. As just a few other recent examples, in November, 2008, in a widely disseminated video, members of the Golani Brigade filmed themselves forcing a captive, blindfolded Palestinian to sing humiliating songs, some of a sexual nature, and some about the Golani Brigade. In December, 2005 a Golani Brigade officer was convicted for beating a Palestinian detainee and threatening to cut off his penis.

Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was a member of the Golani Brigade. A 1995 New York Times article on Amir and the Golani Brigade reported, “One day reporters came upon some of them [Golani Brigades] in a Palestinian village near Bethlehem, dragging youths into a bus packed with soldiers beating their clubs on the steel seat frames in unison and chanting wildly: ‘We are Golani! We are insane!’… ‘In Golani, everybody hits,’ Mr. Amir’s comrade, Mr. Nagar remembered…. During searches in Jabalaya, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Nagar said, ‘The officer says, before breaking into a house, give them a 10,000 mile tune-up.’ The Times article noted that, in addition to Amir, “Three men who had served in Golani have committed widely publicized murders of Arabs and an Israeli peace campaigner.”

The Strauss Group partners in honey production with Kibbutz Yad Mordechai which is located just outside of the Gaza Strip. According to the historian Walid Khalidi’s book “All that Remains,” Yad Mordechai, established in its current location in 1943, has expanded onto the land of the Palestinian village of Hirbiya, which probably fell to Israel in November, 1948.

Sabra’s headquarters is on 49th St and Astoria Boulevard in Astoria, Queens.

Unfortunately, in September, 2008, the Massachusetts-based Tribe Hummus, a competitor of Sabra, was “acquired by the Israel-based Osem Group for $57 million.”

DELTA GALIL INDUSTRIES

According to the Jerusalem Post, “Delta Galil is the nation’s largest manufacturer and marketer of textiles and is one of the largest private-label underwear manufacturers in the world. The company was one of the first local firms to benefit from the peace process, as it moved manufacturing to neighboring countries with low labor costs. Delta currently manufactures in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Scotland.”

In the 1990s, Delta Galil closed its clothing factories in the Galilee that employed Palestinian citizens of Israel, and took advantage of the “Peace Process” to move its factories to Jordan and Egypt, where It could exploit even cheaper Arab labor.

Delta Galil USA is located in Secaucus, New Jersey and also has offices in Manhattan.

GLOBAL BRANDS THAT PROFIT FROM ISRAELI APARTHEID:

MOTOROLA

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has started a boycott campaign to “Hang up on Motorola”. US Campaign research shows that Motorola and its wholly owned subsidiary, Motorola Israel, directly support Israel’s human rights abuses and occupation of Palestinian territory by: 1) Producing the 980 Low Altitude Proximity Fuse for the MK-80 series of high-explosive bombs. On July 30, 2006, during its war on Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force dropped an MK-84 high-explosive bomb on an apartment building in Qana, Lebanon. The bomb killed at least 28 civilians, many of whom were children, who had taken shelter in the basement of their apartment building; 2) Developing and supplying the Israeli military with the “Mountain Rose” secure cell phone communication system, which is the exclusive communications system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; 3) Supplying Israel with the Wide Area Surveillance System (WAAS) to monitor and maintain the illegal wall it has constructed in the Palestinian West Bank. Motorola Israel’s provision of the WAAS to Israel contradicts the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion in July 2004; 4) Providing radar detection devices and thermal cameras for 47 illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. According to the Fourth Geneva Conventions, Article 49, it is a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its civilian population in to occupied territories.

Motorola is a corporate partner of UNICEF. UNICEF, as an organ of the United Nations, is committed to international law and UN resolutions opposing Israeli settlements, demanding an end to Israeli military occupation, and supporting Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homes.

Motorola products are sold in many New York City stores.

ESTEE LAUDER

Ronald Lauder is one of the sons of the now deceased Estee Lauder and is a member of the Board of Directors of Estee Lauder, as well as the Chairman of Clinique, one of Estee Lauder’s core brands. Ronald Lauder is the Chairman of the Board of the Jewish National Fund and was previously the JNF’s President. The JNF secures land in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories for exclusively Jewish use. The JNF has been the object of repeated court challenges for discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel by marketing the land that it controls in Israel only to Jews. The JNF is headquartered in NYC at 42 East 69th St..

According to Stop the Wall, “The JNF was established in 1901 to acquire Palestinian land that would be for Jewish use only. Much of the land that belongs to Palestinian refugees was deemed “absentee property” and transferred to the JNF. The rest of the stolen land was transferred to the Israel Land Authority (ILA). Half of the board members of the ILA are appointed by the JNF. The JNF plants trees, in order to hide the remains of over 500 Palestinian villages destroyed in and since the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.”

Additionally, according to a 2005 report in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily, an arm of the JNF has been buying land in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for Israeli settlements. “Since 1967, tens of thousands of dunams of land have been purchased by the Jewish National Fund in areas of strategic importance in Judea and Samaria. The lands share a common location: They are all near the Green Line, in areas which will be up for negotiation in the event of an Israel withdrawal to the 1949-1967 armistice lines. The lands were purchased with funds from the state and the World Zionist Organization, through Himnuta – a subsidiary established by the JNF to carry out complex and discreet transactions. According to its official policy, the JNF does not purchase lands beyond the Green Line, one reason being to keep it out of political debates liable to have a negative effect on donations. However, since the 1967 Six-Day War, Himnuta has purchased land near the settlements near Jerusalem, including Beit Jala, Beit Safafa and the Etzion Bloc.” All Israeli settlements violate international law.

L’OREAL/BODY SHOP

The French cosmetics company L’Oreal became a target of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in December 2008, in a campaign called Boycott L’Oreal: Makeup for Israeli Apartheid. L’Oreal brands include Maybelline, Lancome, Matrix, Redken, Vichy/Dermablend and Helena Rubinstein. In 2006 L’Oreal purchased The Body Shop, which has a reputation for being socially conscious. The Body Shop has sixteen stores in New York City. L’Oreal’s USA headquarters is in Manhattan at 575 Fifth Avenue at 47th St, and there is a L’Oreal factory in Piscataway, New Jersey.

According to the BNC, “L’Oreal Israel, the company’s subsidiary in Israel, has operated a factory in the Israeli town of Migdal Haemek in the Lower Galilee. The settlement of Migdal Haemek was established in 1952 on lands belonging to the ethnically-cleansed Palestinian village of al-Mujaydil, whose original inhabitants are still denied the right to return to their homes. Like almost all other Jewish settlements built in the midst of Palestinian villages in the Galilee, inside Israel, Migdal Haemek discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel, denying them the right to buy, rent or live on any part of the town, simply because they are “non-Jews.”

“L’Oreal Israel manufacturers a line of products using Dead Sea minerals under the name “Natural Sea Beauty” that is exported to 22 countries. It should be noted that one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While the entire shore and its resources are systematically closed to Palestinians by Israeli military occupation and apartheid practices, Israel exploits the Dead Sea for international tourism, mining and improving its image.”

The BNC says that L’Oreal should be a target of the academic campaign, because: “L’Oreal awarded a $100,000 “lifetime achievement” award to a scientist at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science in July 2008. The Weizmann Institute, since its establishment, has been a major center for clandestine research and development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on behalf of Israel’s military establishment with which it has close ties.”

According to L’Oreal’s Sustainable Development Report for 2007, L’Oreal partners with UNESCO, supporting women in science and a “Hairdressers Against AIDS” project. UNESCO, as an organ of the United Nations, is committed to international law and UN resolutions opposing Israeli settlements, demanding an end to Israeli military occupation, and supporting Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homes. L’Oreal states that it strives to be free from violations of human rights, and L’Oreal has been a signatory of the UN Global Compact since 2003. In 2002, The Body Shop gave a human rights award to a Palestinian Israeli non-profit that advocates for internally displaced refugees in Israel and for the right of return of refugees. Ironically, they are now owned by L’Oreal, that has a factory on a cleansed village.

Max Brenner is an Israeli chocolatier with two stores and a corporate office in Manhattan. Max Brenner is 100% owned by the Israeli company the Strauss Group (the Strauss Group also owns 50% of Sabra -see above). The Strauss Group is the second largest Israeli food and beverage company and is widely touted as one of the great successes of Israeli industry.

On its website in the section on “Corporate Responsibility,” the Strauss Group emphasizes its support for the Israeli army, noting in a section entitled “In the Field with Soldiers”, “Our connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path. We have also adopted the Southern Shualei Shimshon troops from the Givati platoon with the goal of improving their service conditions and being there at the front to spoil them with our best products.”

Historically, the Israeli army has been a flagrant violator of human rights and international law. Even by the abysmal standards of the Israeli army, Israel’s “elite” Golani Brigade has a history of severe human rights abuses. According to a January 2009 article in Ha’aretz Daily, the Golani Brigade, “is known as a brigade that struggles with no small number of disciplinary problems and scandals, caused by bad behavior ranging from revolts against commanders to abuse of Palestinians.” During Israel’s January, 2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, The same Ha’aretz article reported that, “Golani is currently operating in the sector in which the IDF has seen the toughest battles with Hamas, the eastern part of Gaza City,” and “since 2003, Golani has also been involved in combating Palestinian terror groups in Gaza” (more from Ha’aretz on 2004 Golani Brigade destruction in Rafah). “In virtually every conflagration, Golani is rushed to the conflict point. In April 2002, during the intifada, the brigade played a central role in Operation Defensive Shield and the missions preceding it, and Golani’s actions in the Jenin and Tul Karm refugee camps led to the elimination of a number of wanted militants… Golani participated in the siege on Yasser Arafat’s Muqata compound in Ramallah, the capture of the casbah in Nablus (along with the Paratroops), and in the difficult fighting in Jenin refugee camp… In the… Second Lebanon War, it saw fierce battle with Hezbollah in the villages of Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbail and suffered 14 casualties between two battalions.”

“Breaking the Silence”, a group composed of ex-Israeli soldiers, has documented numerous cases of Golani Brigade involvement in human rights abuses. As just a few other recent examples, in November, 2008, in a widely disseminated video, members of the Golani Brigade filmed themselves forcing a captive, blindfolded Palestinian to sing humiliating songs, some of a sexual nature, and some about the Golani Brigade. In December, 2005 a Golani Brigade officer was convicted for beating a Palestinian detainee and threatening to cut off his penis.

Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was a member of the Golani Brigade. A 1995 New York Times article on Amir and the Golani Brigade reported, “One day reporters came upon some of them [Golani Brigades] in a Palestinian village near Bethlehem, dragging youths into a bus packed with soldiers beating their clubs on the steel seat frames in unison and chanting wildly: ‘We are Golani! We are insane!’… ‘In Golani, everybody hits,’ Mr. Amir’s comrade, Mr. Nagar remembered…. During searches in Jabalaya, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Nagar said, ‘The officer says, before breaking into a house, give them a 10,000 mile tune-up.’ The Times article noted that, in addition to Amir, “Three men who had served in Golani have committed widely publicized murders of Arabs and an Israeli peace campaigner.”

The Strauss Group partners in honey production with Kibbutz Yad Mordechai which is located just outside of the Gaza Strip. According to the historian Walid Khalidi’s book “All that Remains,” Yad Mordechai, established in its current location in 1943, has expanded onto the land of the Palestinian village of Hirbiya, which probably fell to Israel in November, 1948.

In 2006 Sahar Shefa, co-founder of Aroma, apologized and paid Mali Shalev $23,000 after Shefa was found guilty of slander for using racist language against Shalev. Shalev visited the offices of Colmobil, Mercedes’ importer in Israel, and was asked to wait for a while until the company’s employees return from a conference they were attending. When Shalev arrived at the place, Shefa shouted at her: “You see my skin color? I’m white and you’re black, I will screw you, this white guy is going to teach you a lesson, you are a black stain. You are a black and inferior woman. You are an idiot. You’re nothing and I make 800 dollars a minute.” Shefa later said: “The things I said are inappropriate in every way, they go against the values on which I was brought up and according to which the Aroma chain is being run. I sincerely apologize.” According to Ha’aretz Daily, Aroma Israel, owned by Sahar’s brother Yariv, has claimed that Sahar Shefa’s Aroma Cafe in Tel Aviv is not associated with Aroma Israel.

SABON

Sabon is an Israeli company with six stores in New York City. Sabon uses Dead Sea Minerals.

According to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in December 2008, in a campaign called Boycott L’Oreal: Makeup for Israeli Apartheid., “It should be noted that one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While the entire shore and its resources are systematically closed to Palestinians by Israeli military occupation and apartheid practices, Israel exploits the Dead Sea for international tourism, mining and improving its image.”

Sabon has supported the organization Friends of the Earth Middle East. Members of Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) have told Adalah-NY that FOEME supports “normalization” between Palestinians and Israelis, while refusing to deal with vital political issues like Israel’s systematic oppression of the Palestinian people.